Prometheus 6

"I have always been difficult-don't expect that shit to change."

I don't, if that matters.  Believe me, as one who has taken the pledge to never vote for either Red or Blue-costumed clowns again, I only wish I could *be* that difficult.  Mostly I just fume and shake my fist a spell, then go crawl back under the bed for awhile. It's not exactly the same thing.  I sort of look at my political beliefs like one of those 600-car freight trains that rolls by nightly about seven blocks from my house.  To wit: Around 1999 or so, somebody in the caboose yelled, "Hey !  This fucking thing is headed over a cliff !  Stop !  Turn around !"

Six years later, there are still hoboes and slaughterhouse-bound livestock in the first 500 cars who haven't heard about the cliff, much less that stopping would be wise, that turning around would be better, that they were headed for slaughter in the first place, etc.

 If that makes any sense.
 

(This is a variant of my comments on Brad Delong's blog)

 Cue Lani Guinier, Fairvote, proportional represention advocates, and so on. The US winner-take-all electoral system tends to shut out geographically distributed largely urban minorities in favor of the majority, the largest minority possible, or a geographically distributed, largely rural minorities. As political scientists and commentators we can write and talk about the injustice, but as activists, victory comes only through alliance with one of the two major parties or through systemic reform.

 That's bitter, I know. And it's bitter for most of us, though it hurts blacks more than most; most of us are not being heard and we know it. As an environmentalist, I have no-one to vote for; haven't since Al Gore ran for the Presidency--and, anyway, the Presidency is only one office, though a powerful one. As an advocate of world federalism, as an advocate of justice in many forms...no-one to vote for. I have little in common with the moderate right that has voted the Republicans into power, but they have the same problem. I hope that, after all the pain we have gone through,  we will begin to make the necessary changes.